


The Bet: A Boyfriend Evolution

by OldDVS



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Humor, M/M, Not much Mary, There's actually sex in this one, but not in the first chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-07 18:16:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20313883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldDVS/pseuds/OldDVS
Summary: John made a bet with his mates.  He lost and now he has to go with them to a gay bar and kiss the best looking man there.  You know who that is, don't you?  Yes, you do.  Everything dominos from there and John's life becomes quite a bit more interesting.





	1. The Bet

**Author's Note:**

> Probably three chapters, possibly four.

John was attempting to slide smoothly onto the bar stool. He was about an inch too short to do it with the panache he was aiming for, but what the hell, he thought, placing his glass on the polished surface of the bar. Torso turned slightly so that he could look up into a pair of incredible eyes, he said, “Hello!” in his warmest voice. Those eyes were really something, and he was distracted for a moment, and then found himself interrupted before he could continue speaking.

“You lost a bet.” Taking small sip from his own glass, the tall, dark man stared his new neighbor. It was like being under a microscope. 

John stared back, refusing to be intimidated. Up close the man was as handsome as he had been from a distance. A wealth of wavy hair, skin like cream, and that mouth. Even John, firmly camped on the heterosexual side of the street for decades, had to admit those lips were perfect. 

A stifled laugh exploded past John's lips “I did. How did you know?” It was damned strange, having to look up while flirting. His glance went down automatically to check out cleavage which wasn't there, and he admitted to himself that the whole situation was more than strange. How did he get himself into these things?

The man shrugged, put down his drink and asked, “What was it? The bet,” he added impatiently as John hesitated. John concluded that the voice was as unique as the eyes. Molly was right. This was the best looking man in the room. Or maybe London.

“Nothing important,” John answered with a careless wave of his hand.

“Embarrassing, then.” The man gave a nod and studied John, his eyes flicking from his face to his chest, then to his shoes. Or something down in that direction. John felt his face turn a bit red. 

“Very,” John agreed, and then glanced towards the table he had come from. Four sets of eyes were regarding him intently. Molly gave him a thumbs up gesture and a shy smile. Oh, god. “I'm John,” he added, leaning forward just a little more.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” the man said with a touch of sarcasm, but did not introduce himself in turn. Instead he said, rapidly, “You're a doctor, just came from St. Bart's. No, wait. You and your friends first went to a pub close to work, but then came here, the nearest gay-friendly bar in the area. They,” he waved at John's friends, “are watching you intently. You lost a bet and this is a forfeit. Which is it, a kiss or a date?”

John's mouth opened but no words came out for several seconds. Then he managed to say, “That was amazing!”

The beautiful man blinked and focused a little more on John's face, saying, “That's not what people usually say.”

“What do people usually say?” John asked, lifting his glass to his lips.

“Piss off.” 

It took heroic effort not to spray the beer all over the man's elegant suit. John choked slightly and gasped a bit around a huff of laughter. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mike give a shoulder punch to Evan.

“Tell me about the wager,” the man demanded again. It was almost charming, but not quite, due to a bit of arrogance in the tone. Okay. A lot of arrogance. The man didn't care how embarrassing it might be for John, he wanted answers to his question.

John debated only a moment and again decided, what the hell.

“We'd bet on the time it would take a...uh, colleague, before he would do a certain incredibly stupid thing we had all seen him do once already. I had my guess down at five minutes, Mike ten, Evan fifteen, you know, everyone had a time, and Molly had 'anything over an hour.' And she was right.” A nod encouraged him to go on, so he added, “Before we started, Molly wrote down on slips of paper what the penalties would be for each of us if she was right. Buy a round, bring pastries in the morning, things like that. The person who was most wrong had to take everyone to the nearest gay bar and kiss the best looking man there.”

“Hence the spirited discussion after you had ordered.” The man gave a nod and his glance went out over the room.

John sensed he did not have the man's full attention. It felt strangely annoying. He said, “Yeah, it took awhile. There are actually quite a few good looking guys here, but finally it was between you and that handsome silver fox in the corner.”

His new friend grinned suddenly, a flash of white teeth which animated his face and left John blinking in surprise. It made that long face look so very different! Less beautiful, but more...something. “Your friend Molly had the final say? On which man you would approach?”

“Yes. Damn, you're good. How did you know?” 

The man lifted his shoulder in a sort of shrug, tilted his head towards John's friends, and lifted his drink to his mouth. It made John look at that mouth again. Was the man doing that on purpose? “Of course, your plan would have worked better if this was actually a gay bar,” the man explained as he put his glass down.

John looked around. Bar along one side of the room, a dozen tables in the middle, booths along the far wall. Low lighting in the corners, where couples leaned towards each other. Lots of ferns in pots. Copper bowls with fancy artificial candles flickering on each table. Two thirds of the patrons were men sitting with other men. “What is it, then?”

“It's the place next door to a gay venue. The Sailor. It has dancing,” he added, “but not right now. No one goes over until just before midnight.”

“So the clientele mix here is just because of proximity, not on purpose?” John asked, leaning forward a little again. “And some of them are here waiting until the action starts.” Waiting here, in a place where you could actually hear a conversation, made sense. 

The man nodded. “Exactly. Why me? Why not the handsome silver-haired contender you mentioned before.” 

“She thought he looked married. I don't know why. He doesn't wear a ring.” 

“Nor the pretty man by the door?” he persisted. 

“She didn't like his looks. Too rough, she said. And the boy by the fern.” John smiled. “Molly said he's too young for me.”

“Too young for anyone. They won't even let him in the door over there so he does his hunting here. What's she do? At St. Bart's?”

“Molly? Oh. Pathologist.” Should he be giving away details about Molly? He pressed his lips together and frowned. But the man was nodding, as if this just confirmed what he already knew.

“And you, Doctor?” 

“Oh. I work at a clinic, actually, not Bart's like the rest of the group. Mike's an old friend. We'd plans to go out for a drink after his shift, and it just,” got out of hand, he wanted to say. Snowballed into this group activity. He still wasn't exactly sure how, in fact. 

“That explains the jumper,” the man said, as if to himself. “You haven't worked at the clinic long. It's your first job since you got back from...Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“How do you know that?” John asked, leaning back in his amazement. The annoying man didn't answer, only studied John with those oddly compelling eyes before continuing.

“You never answered my question. Kiss or date?”

“Oh. Ah. Well. Kiss, actually.”

The man nodded. “Molly wished you to go to a gay bar, and kiss the man she selected as most attractive. She wanted to see you kiss a man then. Your Molly has hidden depths.”

“Right.” He was beginning to wonder about Molly, too. Or at least Molly's idea about what was entertaining. Or punishment? Or...what had he ever done to Molly, anyway, that she would come up with this insanity?

“As this is not precisely a gay bar, she's created an interesting dynamic.” At john's questioning glance he explained, “I've never kissed a man, myself.”

“Oh, god,” John murmured. Somehow, asking a not-gay stranger for a kiss was even more embarrassing than asking a gay stranger for a kiss. In either case he was probably lucky he hadn't collected a fist to the face.

“Which is not to say that I haven't, upon occasion, wondered what it would be like,” the man admitted, with a look from the side of his eyes. He was pursing his lips just a little. John found himself staring at those lips. 

“Well. Yes. I suppose one does wonder,” John stammered. For some reason he was thinking of an officer he knew in Afghanistan, and some fleeting fantasies he had relentlessly pushed away at the time.

“It happens that I am to create a small distraction just before ten.”

John glanced at the ornate clock behind the bar. It was just five minutes until ten. 

“I was going to spill a drink on someone,” the man went on, with a glance at John 's jumper. “But perhaps a kiss would garner more attention.”

John knew he would have been the innocent victim wearing the drink, and the glass was almost full. He had deliberately seated himself in the spot right beside this madman, so it was probably his own fault. Given the choice between a drenching and a kiss, he was voting for the kiss. Which made his stomach roll a bit. “Urm. Probably,” he said, a bit belatedly. It looked as if he were actually going to kiss this man. He slid a glance towards the table where Molly held court, noting that everyone's attention was still firmly planted on him. He swallowed, hard, and cut his eyes back to the man who was now staring at him with keen speculation.

A few long seconds ticked by. Waiting for exactly the right time, John realized, and then wondered if this man was a criminal of some sort. Pickpocket, maybe, with an accomplice who would use the distraction to relieve people, possibly including his friends, of their wallets. Or what if....

Before he could complete the thought the other man leaned forward, cupped the side of his face with a long-fingered, elegant hand and kissed him.

Okay. The guy had a great aftershave, he noticed, before he was overwhelmed by lips and kissing a man and...lips. Not much different from kissing a woman. Warm. Lips. And. Well. He leaned into the kiss, automatically pressing his own mouth forward, his hand coming up to brace himself on the other man's shoulder. This encouraged a bit of movement, a nestling closer from both of them, a slight change in angle and then....

Fireworks!

Fireworks hell, that was an atom bomb. An explosion of feeling and heat and taste and John lunged forward for more even as he felt an arm around his shoulders pulling him closer and his mouth was open now, pressing into and then devouring the responsive, gasping mouth opening under his onslaught.

John whimpered and sent his tongue out. The other man did not seem to know what to do with his own tongue, pushing it tentatively against John's. As clumsy and awkward as it was, the touch of tongue still lit a few more fires in John's gut. Twisting, John slid off the bar stool, and as his arm had wound around the other, the man came forward off his own stool so that they now stood, arms wrapped around each other, still kissing.

In the distance John heard a Molly-esque screech, followed by a shout from the back of the room. Layered over that was the sound of a scuffle but he couldn't be arsed to break away to look because a leg had curled around his to draw him ever closer as they broke apart to gasp for a breath and then dived in again.

The man tasted like fine wine and he smelled like a forest in autumn. The scent of make-up and perfume and lipstick that signaled a date to John was entirely missing. John's mouth slid off center as the other man shifted his head. It had been hours since a razor had slid against that long jaw and John wondered how his own skin felt against those incredible lips. Strong lips that bit at his mouth before zeroing in again.

It was probably two minutes later that a hand fell on his shoulder and gave enough of a pull to break the suction between them. John looked up to tell whomever it was to piss off, It was the silver-haired man from the corner, number two on Molly's best looking list. Right now he looked amused, impatient and exultant.

“Got him, Sherlock! Your distraction was great but...uh....” He was now staring hard at the dark-haired man, his expression half puzzlement, half amusement.

“Experiment,” the man called Sherlock mumbled, his own eyes glued to John's. There was a fire in them now, a sort of mad exultation. John wondered if his own eyes were as intense. “Successful experiment,” Sherlock added.

“Sherlock,” the man began again, but Sherlock...what sort of a name was Sherlock?...turned to him impatiently.

“I pointed out your murderer,” he snapped. Murderer? John blinked. “I provided the distraction that allowed you to catch him before he killed again. I think I'm done here, don't you, Lestrade?”

Mr. Lestrade grimaced, a hand coming up to drag through his hair. “Except for the paper work, which I want done tomorrow, and I am not kidding about this, Sherlock, yes. Yes, we are done. Which isn't to say I don't have questions,” he added, glancing again at John. 

He wasn't alone in that. John had questions, too. Along the line of 'What the fuck?' and, 'What is this, anyway?' and, 'Why did we stop?'

“Fine. To-mor-row,” Sherlock enunciated, his hand already coming out to grab John's. “Come on, John.”

“What? No. What are you doing?” John asked as he was dragged away from his unfinished drink, the confused probably-a-policeman, and the particular spot where his entire life took a lurching paradigm shift.

“We're going to my flat. I've deduced you would not leave without a word with your friends. Say good-bye, but don't linger. We need to talk.”

That actually made a lot of sense. Wait. No it didn't. The talking part, okay but...his flat? John stumbled to a halt in front of the table. Evan was laughing at him and snickered as he said, “Watson! You're kidding me?” Ted was looking the other way, watching a handcuffed man be put up against the wall by a dark-haired woman who looked pleased to do it. Aaron was eying Sherlock with intense speculation and something else. Lust? John found himself stepping between them as the man moved forward.

Molly's sparkling eyes looked as big as golf balls in her small face as she looked from John to Sherlock. Her hand went to her mouth.

Sherlock was lifting John's jacket from the chair beside Molly, swinging it over his own arm while saying, “Thank you, Dr. Hooper, for...everything.” He was already turning, and since John's hand was still firmly held in his, John was already turning, too.

“I'll call you!” John managed to say before they were out of earshot. “Wait. How did you know Molly's last name?”

“She's still wearing her name tag.” 

“Oh. So the St. Bart's part wasn't a guess?” They were out the door now, pausing while Sherlock raised his hand. Instantly, a cab slid to a stop before them. Sherlock held the door and gestured John to get inside, while calling out an address to the cabbie. John managed to get his jaw up off the pavement before he climbed in. That was fast!

“Not a guess at all. Dr. Hooper kicked me out of her lab once. She must not remember. She wasn't wearing her name tag then,” Sherlock recalled. 

“Why did she kick you out?” John asked as the cab moved forward into traffic.

“I asked to borrow a leg. Or an entire body She didn't even bother to ask me what I wanted it for!” Sherlock complained.

That seemed very reasonable of Molly, actually. John let his curiosity take over his mouth. “Whatever did you want it for?”

“I needed to discover the effects of assault with a whip, postmortem. I brought my own whip,” he explained patiently.

“Whip?” Whipping dead bodies was not really...good.

“Oh, don't look like that. It was for a case!”

John frowned. “A case?” he repeated, dubiously.

“I help the police,” Sherlock said. “I'm a consulting detective,” he added proudly. “The only one.” 

In the dim light of the cab, with his hair falling over one eye, Sherlock looked younger than John had previously assumed. Maybe it was because now John had a voice in his head which was chanting, 'The wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one!'

“The police need your help?” he asked, dubiously.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Always.”

“They pay you for that?” John wondered.

“Seldom. Expenses, sometimes. When I remember to fill out the forms,” he added in a mumble. 

“So what's your regular job, then?” 

“Consulting detective. General public. Tiresome. But they usually pay me.”

“Good.”

“Yes. Boyfriends should know that about each other,” Sherlock said.

“Boyfriends!” The word ended on a squeak. John swallowed hard and tried it again in a deeper register. “Boyfriends?” He'd had some relationships that developed rather quickly, but this was a bit much. “I don't think we're quite that,” he said, as gently as he could.

“You liked kissing me,” Sherlock reminded him. It probably had not taken a detective to figure that out. “I like kissing you. We're going to my flat so we can do it again. It has occurred to me that there are other things besides kissing I may want to investigate more thoroughly.” He studied John and said, “We should do our investigating together.”

“I may not be ready for...erm. Investigating.” He was trying not to think about how warm he was getting even not-thinking about it.

Sherlock looked worried. “But you do want to...to...” His brow wrinkled as he tried to find the right words.

“To see where this can go?” It was insane, but John wanted to know, too.

"Exactly!"


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sexy times start here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was written in two different versions and I had to combine the two. This turned out to be most difficult when each version had a good bit and I had to discard one or the other or figure out how to use it. I still suspect you can see some of the stitching lines. Please mention it if there is something I screwed up.

“Exactly!” Sherlock was saying as the cab was slowing down. Sherlock was ready with the notes when it stopped. John wasn't to know until much later how amazing that was. It was a good address and far from John's own bedsit in more ways than one. Sherlock hurried them through the door, up the stairs and into a nice flat.

John had, in the back of his mind for years, the image of an ideal flat. It looked something like this. Well, minus the skull, the table full of laboratory equipment and the bullet holes in the wall. Cozy, a little old-fashioned. The dead opposite of the tiny shabby post-war house of his childhood or the sterile concrete box on the seventh floor of the building he currently occupied. 

But he did not get a chance to study it for long. His arms were full of consulting detective and he was becoming reacquainted with the warm depths of a man's mouth. Man's mouth. It set him on fire again, but even as he was pressing into the kiss he was wondering what he was doing, why he was doing it. Was it the risk? The challenge? An excuse to go where he'd never had the guts to go before? Did he really want to do this?

The next time he could grab a breath it was because Sherlock had taken him by the hand and was pulling him past the kitchen and through another door. Bedroom. A flick of long fingers as they went by and a lamp clicked on. A large bed was pushed against the far wall, the perimeter of the rest of the room lined with nice chests, bureaus and barrister's bookcases, the glass panels more often open than shut. Sherlock looked at John. John looked back and swallowed, hard.

“Perhaps,” John said, “we should find out, urm. Well. Talk about. Expectations.”

Sherlock wrinkled his brow. “Expectations?” he said. “We came here to have sex,” he explained to John. He frowned. “Didn't we?”

That's why John usually went home with someone, true. But he wasn't comfortable with jumping from a few kisses into bed. Not under these circumstances. “You said the kiss was an experiment,” John said. “Quite a leap to sex, really.”

“An Experiment I've successfully duplicated several times now,” Sherlock pointed out proudly.

“Right.” But there was something about this entire encounter that seemed to indicate that Sherlock was a bit innocent. “Look, have you done this with a woman?”

“Kisses? Several times. Those were not successful experiments,” Sherlock told him. 

“No, I was thinking about the sex part,” John told him.

“Oh. No. Women. Not my area.”

“So. Men, then?”

“Yet to be determined.”

“So neither of us know what we're doing?”

Sherlock glowered. “It's not rocket science, John.”

No, it was something even more complicated. “If either one of us says stop, we stop,” John said. He had condoms in his wallet. Well. One. Would it come to that? He wasn't ready for that, he told himself, while his back-brain held a crystal clear image of naked-kneeling&arse that told him he might not be ready for it, but he was definitely getting turned on thinking about it. 

He was pulled into an embrace which left his head against the man's shoulder and his lips an inch from that tall column of neck. He couldn't help it. His tongue came out and tasted.

“Ghu?” Sherlock gasped.

Ghu, indeed. John did it again. He felt a shiver run the entire length of the body in his arms. Something about the angle as warm lips pressed against his temple made this experience seem brand new. Especially since Sherlock was now breathing deeply, his nose buried in John's hair. Sniffing him and, John was sure, deducing things. Made him glad he'd used shampoo this morning. 

It was staggeringly different. Robbed of the confidence which experience had given him, it was like being a teenager again, the uncertainty combined with scrabbling need. The wanting combined with fear. An absolutely huge hand was pulling at his shirt and then sliding up under the fabric, hot on his skin. His own hands were doing the same, seeking out skin to touch. So much wonderful hot skin.

Sherlock was tall, but not really a big man, and John knew oh so well that he himself was not physically a big man himself But there was a difference of scale; none of his girlfriends had been ever been anywhere near six feet tall. It wasn't that he didn't seek out tall women, it was that they didn't usually show much interest in him. 

Unlike Sherlock. Sherlock, who was doing a relatively efficient job of getting him out of his shirt. John went to work on Sherlock's buttons in turn. Sherlock pushed the shirt off John's shoulders and he then he slid his hands along John's vest. “Silk?” Sherlock whispered into his ear. 

God, that voice. It rumbled into his blood. John flushed. “Uh, right.” Leftover from his service. They'd suggested silk for all underwear, including pants. Ballistic boxers, they called them. The things worked. More than one soldier had been spared devastating damage because of the protection the special heavy silk offered. His own hands settled on Sherlock's chest. “Silk?” he asked in turn. 

“A silk blend. It feels good,” he sighed, pressing into John's touch.

“Yes. Yes it does,” John whispered, and let his hands roam down and under the clinging fabric again. The silk was nice, but this skin was even better. Acres of it, covering long firm muscle. The roughness of hair. The edge of a hard nipple. Sherlock didn't have as much hair on his chest as John had on his. Would he be put off by John's? 

Apparently not. In fact, Sherlock seemed to be enjoying his explorations. His fingers coiled through the hairs, raked them, ruffled them and stroked them smooth again. His large nose traced through them to John's armpit and a red tongue came out and licked him there. 

John paused in his own investigations to fight back a yelp. He forgot about it as Sherlock said, “Will you let me see your scar?”

He took a deep breath. “How did you know I had one?” John asked.

“The silk. The way you hold your shoulders. Walk. You have a trace of a limp, too. You used a cane when you first came back?”

“Yes. Worked hard to eliminate the need for it. People try not to let it, but it affected how they saw me. Or it could be a coincidence that I wasn't getting the jobs I interviewed for. But got the first one I applied for without it.”

“But you were a surgeon.” 

How the hell did the man know these things? “And might be again if the physical therapy works on the shoulder as well as it did on the leg. Right now I have a tremor that keeps me from qualifying again.” And almost certainly always would. He tried not to think about it. 

Instead he was marveling at how easily Sherlock had been distracted. But even as the thought passed through is mind Sherlock turned his attention to John again. The vest was pulled off over his head. Gentle fingers traced his scars while soft lips pressed into the juncture of shoulder and neck. John shivered and drew away, reaching out. He had a slightly hard time pulling off Sherlock's shirt. He had to do it one-handed as that shoulder didn't have the range of motion to reach so far over his head. He was reminded again of the sheer maleness of the person he was undressing.

Then Sherlock's hands were deftly undoing his belt and John's stomach was suddenly churning. The angle was wrong to reciprocate and so he let his hands settle on Sherlock's hips and stepped out of his trousers when they fell to the floor. Should have taken his shoes off first he thought as he heeled them off. He shivered as the air hit his mostly nude body. Sherlock stepped out of his own shoes as John returned the favor, trying to show confidence as he worked at getting the trousers to slide off those hardly-there hips. God, the fabric. 

As the fine trousers pooled down to join his on the floor, a wash of scent went flooding into John's nose and he breathed it in, letting it go deep inside, feeling a shivery response in his gut. Neither of them was more than half hard. John could tell even though he was carefully not staring at the stretch of fabric over the crotch of the other man. He was carefully not staring but he already knew that Sherlock was bigger in that area than John. 

In an all male environment such as the army, size was a large piece in the big game. Something teased about, lied about, bragged about. Used to project a masculine image and manipulate others. John had played the game to such affect that he garnered a reputation. Three Continents Watson. Although, in his experience, what they said was true. It wasn't just the size, it was what you did with it, and his reputation was hard-earned and deserved. But John knew the hand he had been dealt in this game was modest. Perhaps a bit beyond average size. It made sense that if Sherlock was a larger man, he could be expected to be larger everywhere. 

To his surprise, however, John found he wasn't intimidated by that, or resentful, or anything but intrigued. He took a deep breath. “Okay?”

“I've found nothing deleterious or objectionable, if that's what you mean.”

“I just want you to...be comfortable with...”

“John, nothing about this could be described as comfortable. Entirely the wrong word. We were doing better when you were kissing me. Go back to doing that.”

Right. He could do that. Get lost in that. His hands went on automatically making sure that they were both naked as soon as possible. Two fumbling steps to one side and they were naked and horizontal. Oh, god, flat on his back with a big man pressing him down to the mattress. He should have felt dominated, or at a disadvantage. Shouldn't he be panicking? It was unsettling, but exciting at the same time. He groaned up into Sherlock's mouth and wrapped his arms around, holding them together. He loved being nude with women, loved feeling all the swells and curves and differences plastered to him head to toe. Turned out the feeling was just as good with that much man pressed to him, skin to skin. He drew up one leg, his foot sliding from Sherlock's ankle to knee, the sensation of wiry hair between his toes one he did had never felt before. 

John pulled up his other leg, wrapping it around the other man's thigh awkwardly. With his nose smashed against a heavy shoulder, he was rethinking logistics and abandoning well-practiced moves for something that actually allowed him to breathe. But he was loathe to move his groin out of alignment with the thickening counterpart he was rubbing against. He twisted into a position that gave him more leverage and the chance for air, but he didn't stop, couldn't stop, and it was no real surprise less than two minutes later when Sherlock froze, convulsed, and then collapsed on him, completely boneless. John had to heave Sherlock over onto his back and, leaning over him on one elbow, used the other hand to frantically jerk himself off all over the mess Sherlock had....

“Ohmyghh, ohmyvery, gah!” he gasped, watching himself paint stripes over the glistening damp of somebody else's spent cock. Then he dropped down and tried to remember how to breathe and listened to another set of laboring lungs under his cheek.

Eventually Sherlock took a deep breath and said, “I don't think we did that right.”

“Wah?'

“Shouldn't it take longer?”

Well, yes, John thought with embarrassment. But before he could marshal some of the scrambled thoughts in his head to say so, Sherlock went on, “Perhaps I deleted that information. I do that sometimes when I come across data that is absolutely no use to me.”

“We just need to slow things down a little,” John panted.

“We can repeat the experiment,” Sherlock agreed with a grin. 

God, that grin. “Not right now, we can't,” John flopped onto his back and tried to take a deeper breath. 

“Will it take long? I have some slides I could....” Sherlock was sitting up, eyes on the doorway. 

John's arm shot out, his hand flattened against that sweaty, glorious chest and growled, very politely, “Go clean yourself off and bring me a flannel. Please.”

Sherlock looked down at himself and said. “Oh, right.” John watched that lovely pale arse until it disappeared, then collapsed back against the sheet with a groan. His body reported that the sheet was unusually nice against his skin. Huh. Thread count, he remembered. An ex girlfriend had told him all about it once, but damned if he could remember any of the details. Sherlock wasn't the only one whose brain abandoned useless information. His version of useless was probably different from John's, of course.

Sherlock returned, dropped a cloth on his stomach that was not wrung out or particularly warm. John's hand clutched it to him so that it would not slide off onto the sheet, and once again watched the tall lanky man with the amazing arse walk out of the room.

Well, this was hopeless. John got up and took his sopping wet flannel and his sticky body to the bathroom, where he cleaned up quickly. He went back, pulled on his trousers, and followed out to the kitchen. Sherlock had found a dressing gown, which he was wearing with the belt untied, and was searching through the detritus on the table for...something. The slides, perhaps. John sighed, and went on his own search. He found the kettle, tea of dubious age, and some cups. He found a few other things he's rather not think about as well, such as a bat mummified in salt and a baggie of yellow mush with dead maggots in it, but he did not find any milk or sugar. Still...the occasion called for tea and he made it. 

Sherlock accepted a cup, realized it was still hot, an d put it down next to a cup which had yesterday's tea in it. Or last week's. 

“What about the bat?” John asked.

“Oh. I found a mummified bat up a chimney, on a case last year.”

And brought it home. Right. “I think you should put it in a box. Less of a surprise that way,” John said mildly. Once in the box it should go in the bin, but he didn't actually say that. 

“Why? Mrs. Hudson has already seen it.” 

“And was she surprised?” John asked, wondering who Mrs. Hudson was.

“Not really. She's been my landlady for several years.”

The poor thing. “I,” John began. “Never mind. Drink your tea.” He drank his own while wandering around the flat. When he finished his cup he turned. 

Sherlock said, “Right. Back to bed.” Really, it was surprising how fast Sherlock could move. He flung the dressing gown at the chair and was in bed before John even got into the room. 

It was a very oral hour. Whatever else John might be doing, Sherlock was in full investigation mode, following his own agenda with single-minded, scientific fervor which included a great many spontaneous kisses, licks and flicking-tongue tastes. It took only a handful of minutes after Sherlock's mouth found John's cock for John to explode. It wasn't even a blow-job really, it was Sherlock in full experimental mode. His tongue licked, jabbed, and pressed, teeth were used lightly in several different ways and then there was a sort of gnawing, fortunately without teeth. Each touch different from the one before, some tentative and some sure. Trying to return the favor was a laugh-riot of ridiculous positions and gasping, grasping, begging on John's part and renewed investigation on Sherlock's.

Right in the middle of it, Sherlock asked, “How do you feel about the violin?” John never did get to answer. John was remembering the question, thinking about asking about it. Although absolutely light-headed and still wiped out, he had no way managed to engage his voice. When the phone call came, he was almost there, but it all left him again as he watched Sherlock, butt in the air, lean over to find his phone. As he clutched it to his ear Sherlock fell back into bed, bouncing them both.. After a short exchange of five or six words, Sherlock shot out of bed, scrambling to get dressed. 

“John! There's a case!”

There was a case, alright. A head case. Sherlock to be specific. Which didn't explain why he was throwing on clothing himself. They were out the door shortly after midnight. Sherlock put one hand up and summoned a cab out of the darkness.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost entirely sexy times and conversation.

It rather went downhill from there. They got back at dawn, after chasing a cabbie all over London. Bit of a disappointment in the end, when the poor chap dropped dead, but Sherlock explained that the man had been playing some sort of sick suicide game that would have resulted in his eventual demise anyway. 

“You don't have to be to work in the morning,” Sherlock told him when he said he should be getting home. “You're exhausted,” he added. “Just stay here.”

So they'd gone to bed and John slept for hours, only waking up shortly before noon when Sherlock, who had vanished at some point, came back to the bedroom, climbed into bed and...

“Are you measuring me?” John growled, lifting his head. 

“Yes, of course. I like to know these things,” he added as John let his head fall down onto the pillow again. 

“Of course you do. Why?”

“I might have to describe you in the future. Or buy you something. Don't boyfriends give gifts?”

“I still don't think we're quite there yet. Boyfriends, I mean. It hasn't even been 24 hours, Sherlock!”

“There's a schedule?” Sherlock asked. “Can I find it on the Internet?”

“Probably,” John muttered. His body reminded him that he had collected more urine than it cared to keep. He forced himself up, causing Sherlock to rear back a bit to give him the room. John sort of climbed around him and off the bed before he could actually go piss. Sherlock followed along, apparently having no sense of modesty at all. “Do you want to go out? Or order in?”

John had seen the inside to Sherlock's fridge, and it held experiments and little else. “I'm not quite in shape to go out to eat. Yesterday's clothing and all. But I could probably manage the shops.”

“Why would we do that?” A wrinkle appeared above the perfect brow. 

“You have no milk. Or sugar. Or anything at all.”

“True. You want us to go get these things? Together?”

“That was the idea, yes.” 

Sherlock nodded. “We could get eggs. Do you know how to cook eggs?”

“I do, but don't you?”

“I have. But sometimes it comes out wrong.” he added.

Probably every time you get distracted by an experiment, John thought. So he got up and they sorted out clothing off the floor and they went off to the shops. Sherlock let John push the trolley and let him select what he wanted. Let him pay, too, but that seemed fair to John. Back at the flat John cooked sausages and eggs and made toast--after he shook the odd colored crumbs out of the toaster—and while they ate Sherlock told him about cases he had solved and criminals he had known.

It was surprisingly entertaining. John washed up, forcing Sherlock to dry because if you counted what had been sitting around in the sink there were too many dishes to just leave to dry themselves. Afterward, they settled in front of the TV. It took some time to find something they could both enjoy. Sherlock had what John considered a rather unnatural and unmasculine disinclination to watch car chases, but he did have a small interest in explosions. He kept interrupting the movie to wonder how this effect or that might have been produced. 

John had been planning to go home. Really, he had. But somewhere in the middle of the second feature Sherlock decided he wanted to experiment a little more with kissing. And really, who could turn that down?

Sherlock was rather startled when John interrupted their kissing and insisted on a shower first, but when John persisted Sherlock proposed they do it together, John took one look at the size of the space and promptly nixed that. Sherlock showered first and was waiting for him in the bed as John came from the shower, and said, as John sat on the edge, “I think we should try fucking.”

John's eyes went wide. Rather blunt, that, but was learning that blunt was one of Sherlock's usual modes. “Well,” John said quite slowly, “Are we ready for that?” And by 'we' he meant himself.

“Fellatio, then? I didn't quite do it right before. But I could be brilliant at it,” he predicted.

No doubt about that. John opened his mouth to say something but Sherlock was speaking again. “I tried to watch porn several times. To learn about intercourse and the associated skills. It never looked...all that moaning and heaving about.”

“Porn?” John said, trying to keep up.

“Porn is quite ineffective for a man of my talents. For someone who can deduce the participants actual feelings and motivations it becomes quite, well, distracting. One actor was quite put off because his partner reminded him of his mother.”

John considered. “I never thought of that. Yes, I supposed it would be a problem.”

“Another man kept looking over the shoulder of his partner, in mid coitus. I'm quite sure he wanted one of the people observing or filming, and not the man actually having sex with him.”

“You could tell that?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, aggrieved. “And they change angles and want you to believe it is all continuity, one...experience, but it's not. I don' think it's at all a realistic portrayal.”

John nodded. Okay. “So you watched porn. Showing women. And men? Actors, I mean?”

“Yes, do keep up.” John nodded, but again was caught while thinking of the right thing to say and Sherlock continued his bit of a rant. “And the ejaculate! Perhaps there is more variation than I thought, but some of the substitutes filmed were entirely unnatural.”

“They used to use hair conditioner.”

Sherlock frowned. “Really?”

“Like you use on your hair? I don't know if they still do, but certain brands apparently are better than others. Color, you know, and viscosity.” He's learned that in late night bull session in the Army. His memory of it was a little blurry. No surprise considering how much alcohol had been involved. 

“Is that economically viable?” 

“Apparently,” John said, but remembering the expensive bottle next to the bathtub and the perfection of Sherlock's waving locks, it was a legitimate question. 

Sherlock looked intrigued. “I wonder how many brands they tested and what the experimental parameters were. Would you adjust the apertures of the original bottle or design a penis substitute so that the...John?”

“Why don't you kiss me again?”

They did that for much longer than John had expected, considering how eager Sherlock had seemed to be about moving forward a few minutes ago. But he realized eventually that, each kiss was different in some way than the one before it and the Kissing Experiment was still on-going. 

Science never felt so good. He felt something against his hip. He pulled away to say firmly, “Condoms.”

“You have some.”

“I have ONE.”

Sherlock said with dismay, “Do we have to stop and go buy more?”

“No,” Well, maybe later, John mentally amended. “It's just that...” he paused, trying to think of exactly how to say this.

“You should get the condom now and inspect it. “ Sherlock pulled away, scrambled out of bed and went to where John's trousers were hung on the back of the chair. He extracted the wallet and opened it on his way back to the bed. “They can deteriorate, you know.”

“Hey?”

“No reason to be worried about your money, John. You don't have much here,” he commented. John rolled his eyes. Mr. Tact. But strangely enough, he wasn't at all worried about Sherlock taking his cash. Sherlock pulled out the condom and dropped the wallet on the floor. He inspected the packet carefully and placed it on the bedside table. 

“The actual problem, well, besides deciding who...er. Well, and there's the need for lube,” John was stammering through several his uncertainties. 

Sherlock was climbing back into bed, leaned over to open the drawer in the bedside table, and fetched out a tube lubricant, a well-known brand, mostly unused, which he dropped on the bed. Then he arranged himself supine, but supported by his elbows in order to see John, as he sent a 'what's keeping you' look. 

John squared his shoulders, but hesitated. 

“Come on Captain. You invaded Afghanistan. Surely it can't be more daunting than that?”

“Not by myself,” John murmured, but he climbed onto the bed and kissed Sherlock again.

He was thinking of the army as he realized that never before in a sexual situation had he found himself feeling so...conquering. The masculine essence of the act increased for him when the body under his was masculine. Making a man make those sounds, those low, rumbling erotic sounds, was inspirational. Sherlock's long arms around him meant they were so very close as they rutted against each other and a tiny bit of John's mind that wasn't in thrall to the sensation was wondering if he could stop and deal with a condom, could....

Sherlock fell over the edge first, convulsing and clawing at his back and making a terrible mess and John pulled back to watch because he so needed to see. Sherlock's last shudder wasn't even over before he was opening his eyes and he said to John, “Use the condom.”

So he reached for the lube and used it with hands that trembled. It was torture to see that expressive face contort at every touch, push, finger. So smooth inside. He'd never slid a finger inside anyone when the finger wasn't in latex. Oh, so very slick and smooth, and clutching at him. He rather got involved with the sensation, which changed again when he eased a second finger inside. Well, what changed were the sounds Sherlock was making. When he thought he'd managed to make Sherlock loose and ready, he stopped to put on the condom, watched by eyes so intense, an expression so fervid that John gasped a bit as he moved into position. Sherlock made a short sound himself and belatedly, John grabbed the spare pillow and eased it under those slim hips. He wasn't, he decided, doing a good job of thinking clearly. Thinking at all, actually.

Sherlock's legs spread, he tilted his pelvis into just the right position and John gasped again and fumbled them together, then sank in to wonderland.

He'd had women this way, a few times. It had never been like this. It was easier. Sherlock was larger, inside and out, maybe that was it. More intense. More physical because Sherlock's long arms took hold of John's arse and pulled him in tight and he was making the most amazing noises and demands. Really, it was all over entirely too quickly. 

The next moment John was really aware, he found his mouth plastered to Sherlocks' shoulder. Drooling on him, actually. He drew back a little. 

“That went well,” Sherlock said with pride. 

“Yes. Yes it did,” John managed to say, rolling off and onto his back. He tried to pull the condom off but his fingers weren't cooperating yet.

“I liked it. You liked it. I think we did it right.”

Any more right and he'd be dead. He managed the condom at last. “God, I hope the neighbors didn't call the police.”

“Mrs. Hudson has gone to visit her sister. That's what she said but I rather think she's staying with one of her gentlemen friends. He's married but she doesn't know yet. I debated telling her, but I wasn't sure   
she actually wanted to know. She gave me a look. And don't worry about Mrs. Turner's renters. One of them's a screamer. Nothing new to them there.”

I fucked a man, John's brain was saying. Oh my god....

“We're going to need more condoms,” Sherlock observed.

“Later,” John said, and more or less passed out. 

An hour later he woke up to find he'd been cleaned off a little but left half sprawled across a tangle of bedclothes. His neck ached because he'd been pillow-less. His shoulders weren't too happy with him, either. He staggered up and took another much needed shower and then dressed and wandered out to the kitchen. Sherlock had actually made tea.

“I'm parched, thanks,” he said, adding milk and then taking his first deep sip.

“It's what a good boyfriend would do,” Sherlock said, quite pleased with himself. 

John paused, blinked and said, “Ummm.”

“Doesn't that,” Sherlock gestured grandly towards the bedroom, “make us Boyfriends?”

“It..well, it depends. You've heard of one-night stands? Just sex doesn't make boyfriends, Sherlock. There's...well, some getting to know each other first and some mutual, ah, decisions.”

“Like moving in? You should, John. Your place is small and you don't like it anyway. There's a room upstairs here, if you wanted a space of your own. You'd probably need it,” he added darkly. “I get on people's nerves. They've told me so,” he explained. “So you might need space.”

“Not quite ready to move in, yet. Quite. You know. It takes a little more time. Big decision. Ah....”

Boyfriends. What was with Sherlock and the boyfriends thing? Maybe he was just uncertain about it all and wanted assurance that John wasn't going to up and disappear on him. Maybe under all that sophisticated clothing and roguish charm there was somebody who really wanted someone of his own. But it was way, way too early to be talking about moving in!

“I'm starving. I do a pasta sauce that's not too bad. That okay with you?”

Sherlock nodded. He appeared to be deep in thought. “We'll get the condoms after we eat?” 

“It's a plan,” John said weakly. Because there was a very odd speculative look in Sherlock's eye. He knew what it meant. Experiments.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No sexy bits, really, in this chapter. Sorry about that. I had to go back and add a few words to chapter 3 in defense of John's not THAT tiny dick. I don't know as that make s much difference, but there you go John. We got yer back.

John Watson dragged in to work Monday morning almost ten minutes late. The receptionist gave him a dirty look. So did the first nurse he passed. He rather suspected that in addition to shadows under his eyes and his tired walk, that he hadn't done a good job shaving. He'd made it home just after dawn, had realized his intention to do laundry on Sunday had gone completely by the wayside and had pulled on his one clean shirt which really didn't say, “I am a professional.” It said, “I should have been thrown away in 1996.” Not that it was that old. 

But he kept a clean shirt in his locker here and planned to change. He'd learned that the hard way. In the last month he had been vomited upon twice. Cora met him at the door to his office. He liked Cora. When he'd met her he had been unhappy to hear she was married. She was shorter than he was and currently sporting hair an unlikely shade of bronze.

“You've got a patient waiting. But I need to talk to you first.” She leaned forward and said in a near whisper, “Do you remember when they assigned everyone a day to provide a Community Connections speaker?” 

Cora and John had started work at the same time and Sarah had paired them up on the theory they might not know the community and wouldn't have as many connections yet. There had been some grumbles, as no one else had a partner. Having them come up with speakers on their own was to maximize the number of subjects presented, John thought. The Monday meeting had become something to dread. Total waste of time he and Cora had decided after sitting through the first one. And the second. And the tenth. John said, “We've got next week, yeah?”

“I certainly thought so, but the calendar on the computer tells me it is today. At eleven.” She added dryly, “It's very mysterious, don't you think?”

“Can't be today, I wrote it down in my notebook. Definitely next week. We've got nurses coming from Hospice.”

“Well, yes. Next week. And they can't make it today instead. I already called and asked,” she added.

John swore a bit and then said, “We had a back-up plan.”

Cora was already shaking her head. “The motorcycle club medic is in France at a charity run.”

John's lips thinned. “Do you think....”

“That someone deliberately dumped us in the shit? Yes. And you know who my first suspect is, too.”

“Mary.” John's hand went to the back of his head. The small headache he had woken up with was still there, but now it seemed a little worse.

“Mary.” Cora made a face. “You never should have turned her down.”

“I did it nicely!”

“Well, Not nicely enough, Johnny Boy. You shouldn't have done it in the lounge.”

“I didn't know anyone else could hear!” Cora rolled her eyes. Well, yes, it had been stupid of him.

“You told her you didn't think it was ethical to date anyone at the clinic. Which would have worked better if you hadn't had that date with Sarah the week before.” Sarah was the head of their clinic. 

“It was just lunch, not a date!” It had been enough to tell them both that dating wouldn't have been a good idea.

“Right. None of that matters. What matters is that it's just gone nine and at eleven we need to produce someone who can talk 45 minutes about anything at all that could be considered Community Connections! What?”

John said, eyes wide, “I just..I was struck by a thought.”

“And it obviously hurt.”

“Yes, it did, but it was one of those...you know how you have an utterly brilliant thought but you know, you just know, that one way or another it is going to come back and bite you right in the arse?” He took a deep breath. “Don't talk me out of it.”

“Out of what?”

John was pulling his phone out of his pocket. He shouldn't have been startled to find a new contact added since he hadn't done it, but frankly, he was grateful as hell not to have to go looking all over for the information. His finger stabbed down and he put the phone to his ear.

“Hello, Sher...how do you do that? Never mind. Tell me later. I have a bit of a problem I hope you can help me with. No, no one's dead. No murder involved at all, sorry. It's just, I need to come up with a speaker right away. Yes, here at the clinic. I haven't even told you where I work but... Oh. Yes, that's it. Yes, but. Okay, the subject has to be some sort of connection with the medical field and a community resource or...no. I don't think there's enough time to pull your friend away from her work. Although that's a good idea for the next time they stick us with this shite, which they will.”

John listened for a moment, “I don't think that would help the community. Yes, I know. That, too. No, I wouldn't go that far. Could you? No, core cadaver temperatures and decomposition rates really aren't of general interest. Not exactly what we're looking for. Look, I was thinking maybe your could talk a few minutes about, I don't know, advice for medical personnel at a crime scene or preserving the scene while taking care of a patient or...”

John frowned. “Who is this Anderson you're muttering about? No, tell me later. What? Oh, that sounds good. Yes...how did you know that? I can't tell you how grateful I am that you'll come. Okay, yes, probably...when I get off work, okay? I'll have to go to my flat, have a few errands. No. No! Oh, for Chr.... Yes, see you then.”

He rang off and looked up. “Well, we've got a consulting detective trained as a chemist coming but what he'll be telling us I couldn't say.”

The receptionist stepped into the corridor to say testily. “Dr. Watson! Your patient is waiting.”

“Just coming,” he said, and Cora dashed away in the other direction. 

It was a hectic morning. Never quite caught up from the delays at the start. So he wasn't able to meet Sherlock at the door as he had hoped. John arrived at the conference room two minutes after eleven to find Sherlock chatting with Cora. Twenty three of his colleague and co-workers were sat in three rows in front of a short lectern with a microphone angling up from it. When John arrived Sherlock stood taller and smiled at him before he strode up to to the lectern, casually tossed his coat on it and turned to look them over. “Most people are idiots. If I'm really in luck, you'll prove to be exceptions.” John slid into his chair, face in his palm.

Sherlock stopped and eyed him. “Not good?”

“Not really, no.”

“Ah. Well. My name is Sherlock Holmes and I am a consulting detective. I assist the police and have a private practice. Today I am going to speak to you about how see, how to observe, how to use what you see. Pay attention!” He had noticed Nurse Demnan in the last row, on his phone as usual. 

The thing was, they did. He was riveting. He strode back and forth, he asked questions and didn't wait for the answer. His head would toss, his hand wave, and they focused on him. He seldom bothered to make eye contact but when he did the person leaned forward. It was almost steam of consciousness, a jerky pinball effect as he contradicted himself or went back to add something.

He spoke his full 45 minutes and might have gone on longer if John hadn't stood up to indicate the time was up. Not only was the time up, but his bum was giving him a twinge or two, so it seemed like a good idea all around. The group would have stayed to ask questions if it weren't lunch time—a precious commodity which was often cut short if one did not take care.

“How did you turn this presentation into, “How the Medical Community Can Help Sherlock Holmes Solve Crimes?” John asked as they met in the front of the room.

Sherlock said, “Why let a resource go to waste? I doubt if they'll be as useful as my homeless network, but perhaps, in time, something will come of it.” He took a deep breath and looked at John hopefully. “Was it okay?” He leaned forward into John's space and lowered his head so that he was speaking directly into John's ear. One hand had settled on John's hip.

John could see, standing just behind Sherlock, Cora, who was waiting to talk to either John or both of them. Her eyes had gone wide. And a few steps behind her stood Mary, looking at them suspiciously. 

John Watson smiled up at Sherlock and said, “You did great. Really came through for me.”

“Of course I did, John. That's what good boyfriends do.” He punctuated the statement with a nod, but was looking out from under one curl uncertainly. He looked adorable. 

“You're better than good. You're a great boyfriend, Sherlock. The best.” 

Behind Sherlock, Mary's expression changed when she heard that word. Her mouth pursed up, her brows came together, and then she glared, eyes going from one to the other of them. 

Sherlock grinned and leaned down a bit. “Lunch?”

“Can't.” Not enough time, and how would he ever keep his hands off him?

“Dinner? I know a very good Italian restaurant.”

“Late? I do have those things I mentioned....”

“I'll be over at eight.” In one smooth motion Sherlock scooped up his coat and slid it over his shoulders as he turned. It swirled dramatically as he rounded the corner.

Mary stomped off. Cora put her hands on her hips.

“Boyfriend?” 

John angled his eyes up. Left. Right. “Urm.”

“It's fine,” she told him hastily.

“I know it's fine. It's just...sudden.”

“It might be sudden, but can't fault you for it. Did you fall for his eyes or his arse?”

“Would you believe me if I said his mind?”

“No. Well, actually, yes. It must be the size of a planet. And speaking of big things, how is he in the sack?”

Red. John felt the red creep up his neck and start to burn on his cheeks. He was extremely thankful when Sarah came up and said, “Wonderful presentation, you two. Where did you find that speaker?”

Cora looked at him expectantly, too.

Bar. Police stakeout? I lost a bet? Uh. No.

“He was working a case,” he decided. He looked towards the lounge, where a packet of crisps could be purchased from the machine in the corner. Lunch. Sarah said something else and she left. Cora said something too, but John was caught up in a thought. He stood there, shaking his head but grinning like a loon.

He had a Boyfriend. Damn.


End file.
